


contiguous

by spookykingdomstarlight



Series: quintessence [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bonding, Character Study, Gen, Implied Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Post-Star Wars: A New Hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-18 01:10:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9357794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: “I’m gonna—” Cassian gestured vaguely at the patch of dirt around their sadly very incapacitated shuttle and tried not to feel guilty about abandoning Bodhi to his work. If Cassian could help, it would be one thing, but this particular mechanical failure was above his paygrade and Bodhi had long since given up trying to explain its nuances just so Cassian might not screw up the repair. The next time Commander Organa wanted a manned shuttle to scout uninhabited planets, she could send someone else. “—out there. For a few minutes.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the [Themed Prompt Table challenge](http://monthlysupergo.dreamwidth.org/932.html) going on over at the [Monthly Challenge! Super Go! community](http://monthlysupergo.dreamwidth.org) on Dreamwidth. This piece is for the prompt: earth.

Bodhi fumbled about in the cockpit, muttering and cursing to himself in a way that Cassian took to mean he wasn’t expecting an answer fro Cassian. He’d been going for over an hour now, flipping switches and stabbing at buttons, and pulling apart the controls so thoroughly that Cassian wasn’t sure it’d ever look right once he got it back together. Wires spilled out over his hands and fell to the floor, scratching at the metal in a way that grated at even Cassian’s patience. To the point where he was about five minutes from losing it entirely.

“I’m going to scout around some,” he called from the open hatch, most of his attention focused on the horizon and the mountains that looked poised to prick the sky, rend the perfect, blue overhead into two, ten, a hundred pieces. He hadn’t seen mountains like that since Fest and he felt dizzy just looking at them.

“Hmm? What was that?” Bodhi answered after a delay, his voice taking on a softer quality with Cassian than it did his equipment. But Bodhi was always like that. Strange, in a pilot. Most of the other ones Cassian knew preferred their ships to people and not, Cassian thought, without good reason. He turned, the goggles perched on his forehead catching the light that streamed in, and raised his hand to avoid being blinded.

“I’m gonna—” Cassian gestured vaguely at the patch of dirt around their sadly very incapacitated shuttle and tried not to feel guilty about abandoning Bodhi to his work. If Cassian could help, it would be one thing, but this particular mechanical failure was above his paygrade and Bodhi had long since given up trying to explain its nuances just so Cassian might not screw up the repair. The next time Commander Organa wanted a manned shuttle to scout uninhabited planets, she could send someone else. “—out there. For a few minutes.”

“Oh, sure. Of course. I’ll just…” Bodhi made a complicated gesture of his own that somehow managed to perfectly convey the mess they’d gotten themselves into.

Cassian frowned, a hunch itching in the back of his mind. “Do you want to take a break?”

“No, I’m close to isolating the problem. I just—”

That wouldn’t do. Striding toward the front of the shuttle, Cassian grabbed Bodhi by the arm and pulled him up. “—need a break, too. Come on. A little fresh air never hurt anyone.”

“But the sooner I’m done—”

“It’ll hold.” Cassian pushed him toward the hatch and scooped up his pack, throwing it over his shoulder as he crowded Bodhi toward the exit so he couldn’t change his mind. Even if he was as eager to get out of here as Bodhi was, it didn’t seem fair that Cassian could walk away from it while Bodhi couldn’t. So Cassian molded the rules to fit his conception of fairness and came to the conclusion that in the long run, it would be quicker if Bodhi came along, too.

Before he took a spanner to the works and exploded the whole console.

“Oh, uh… sure.” Whether Bodhi was agreeing just to be peaceable or because he genuinely wanted a break, Cassian couldn’t decide. Whatever the case may have been before, Cassian couldn’t deny that Bodhi seemed remarkably taken with the distant mountains once he laid eyes on them, and so Cassian counted it as a win. Eyes wide, mouth a little open, Bodhi said, “Oh.”

Clapping him on the shoulder, Cassian smiled. “Good man.”

“There aren’t mountains like that on Jedha,” Bodhi said, his breath hitching as he followed Cassian around the shuttle and back again. Ostensibly, Cassian wanted to check for damage, but mostly he wanted to _not think_ about Jedha’s mountains or lack thereof.

Cassian’s breath hitched, too, but he covered it with a harsh exhalation. “Jedha will recover in time,” he said, so full of a certainty he didn’t feel that he was sure Bodhi would see through it, too. Jedha would try. Whether it would succeed was another thing entirely.

“Do you think?” And the ache of hope was so clear in Bodhi’s voice that Cassian wished he could go back in time and unsay on Galen Erso’s behalf whatever it was that had acted as Bodhi’s catalyst so he wouldn’t have had to be there when Jedha became the Death Star’s testing ground. A selfish thought, that. And an unfair one. They’d needed Bodhi and Bodhi’d more than earned the right to own this grief or repudiate it however he wanted. It wasn’t Cassian’s place to coddle him or take away from him that which had molded him.

“I hope so,” Cassian answered. This, at least, he believed was true. The galaxy was a resilient place and the Empire couldn’t take everything from its people. Already there was agitation from some in the Alliance to reclaim Jedha. And the day Mon Mothma approves that mission, Cassian will be there.

“It must seem silly to you,” Bodhi said.

“What must?”

“Jedha is still there. Other places…” When Cassian turned to look at him, he saw Bodhi shrug, dejected, and scratch at his neck, tendrils of hair falling into his face.

Alderaan. He meant Alderaan, of course, which hung like a specter over the galaxy, the wound against which everything else was now compared. It had been a wake-up call, Alderaan’s obliteration, and the Alliance had never seen so much support as the aftermath of it, but it never failed to infuriate Cassian when suffering elsewhere was declared lesser because of it. “There’s no quantifying evil at that scale,” he said, abrupt. “And it’s not silly to want to see your home rebuilt just because it was reduced to rubble instead of dust.” His boot scuffed at the dirt, forming a furrow in the ground. “It’s all still so much destruction, isn’t it?” Absolutely unfathomable destruction. But they’d won, at least.

They’d won just this once.

There would be no more Jedhas. No more Alderaans.

Whatever the Empire still had up its sleeve couldn’t be any worse than that.

“You think so?” Bodhi asked, peering at the side of Cassian’s head like he could bore a hole through it if he tried hard enough.

_This isn’t what I had in mind when I said we needed a break_ , Cassian thought, but he nodded anyway, Bodhi’s need for assurance more important than for Cassian to step away from his job for five minutes. “Has this been bothering you long?”

“No.” And Cassian knew he was lying by how quickly he shook his head.

Cassian sighed and found a patch of grass a few steps away from the shuttle. He sat and rummaged around in his pack for the canteen of tepid water he’d brought along and slapped the space next to him. Trying to find the right words, he handed over the canteen and thought. He thought about the snow-capped peaks in the distance that reminded him of Fest—Fest had only ever left him orphaned at six with no other family to care for or be cared for by—and wondered how he would feel if it had been attacked.

He would feel something, he was sure. He always felt something, even for homes that weren’t his.

“Keep fighting for Jedha,” he said finally, painfully aware of just how inadequate those words were.

“Where do you fight for?”

A smile, slight, probably as tepid as the water, threatened to peek through the dour frown that had long since become his default expression. Jyn’s face came to mind first and most quickly, though he suspected she wouldn’t appreciate him classing her as a place. K-2’s, as well, and he definitely wouldn’t. Bodhi and Baze and Chirrut’s, too. “The Rebellion,” he said, squinting as he stared up at the sky, though that didn’t cover it, not really.

Bodhi smiled somewhat more easily than Cassian most days. And now was no exception as he relaxed into a grin even given the turn their conversation had taken. Or perhaps in spite of it. “There are worse places to fight for,” he answered, his words a kindness freely offered. If only Cassian were better at accepting kindnesses in return.

Cassian stretched his arm toward Bodhi’s knee and squeezed, hoping that was enough to convey his sorrow and pride and appreciation. They could use more people like Bodhi in this fight. Hell, Cassian himself could learn a thing or two from him if he gave himself half the chance. People like Bodhi helped the rest of them see the end goal they were fighting for.

After a few minutes of silence, Bodhi brushed at his flight suit and pushed himself to his feet. His hand fell on Cassian’s shoulder, a warning look in his eye. _Stay put_ , it said. “Let’s get this done and get home, yeah?”

“Okay.” Cassian stayed put. “Sounds good.”

“Good. I’ll call you if I need something.” Stepping toward the shuttle, he turned and hung off the hatch. “And Cassian?

“Thanks.”

Cassian tried and failed to find the right words to say in return.

All the same, he didn’t doubt Bodhi wouldn’t hold that against him.


End file.
